


dawn goes up to day

by wafflelate



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, Hospital Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 06:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18867865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate
Summary: Gai during the Hospital Arc.





	dawn goes up to day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [witchbreaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchbreaker/gifts).



> > Once Gai-sensei had left, I asked, "he doesn't know?"
>> 
>> "I didn't tell him," Kakashi-sensei said which wasn't quite the same thing. Because everyone knew about the sharingan and chakra drain, and anyone who'd known him for a long time would probably be able to see that it was getting worse. The true scope of it might have been a surprise, though, like it had been to us.
>> 
>> "Are you going to tell him?" I asked, almost tentative.
>> 
>> "No."
>> 
>> And that was that.  
> — Chapter 125/124: Hospital Arc  
> 

Long after the Grass Chūnin exams, Kakashi looks over the _desk_ he’s working at these days and says, “Shikako-chan’s grappling is still terrible.” 

“A dangerous weakness,” Gai muses. “I never thought one of my eternal rival’s students would neglect their taijutsu.” 

“Aa, I’ve just been busy,” Kakashi says, “And there’s so many other things to teach her. I was hoping you would do it.” He beams a smile at Gai, his eye crinkling, no different from any other time he’s tried to pass off an errand, bill, or assignment to Gai. 

And yet, a chill settles over Gai, a chill that won’t leave. 

Gai has lost people before. One of Gai’s genin teammates had died in the first year after Academy graduation as a result of enemy action, taken a wound in the field too far from any medics who might have been able to help, and Gai had pushed through and welcomed Ebisu into that gap in their team. Gai’s father had died saving his and Genma and Ebisu’s lives in a splendid and tragic and brutal fight, the memory of which still causes Mist shinobi to flinch when they see Gai coming. Gai has even almost lost Kakashi before, or thought him lost. In the third war, he’d heard that one of Namikaze Minato’s genin was dead weeks before he’d heard which one. In their late teens, Kakashi had been in the hospital almost as frequently as he is now. 

But other losses still hadn’t been like this one, which is slow, and uncertain, and secret, and without external conflict. 

Every time Kakashi goes into the hospital, Gai worries that it will be the last time. Every time Kakashi is discharged from the hospital, Gai worries it will be the last time. Every challenge they do, every meal they share, every conversation they have — will it be the last? The second to last? 

Kakashi spends the last week of May and the first several days of June in the hospital. Gai visits him daily, early in the morning, until one morning Kakashi has been discharged before he gets there. Gai would have been happy to forgo training with Lee to take Kakashi home, had Kakashi simply waited for him, but the pointed absence of his rival indicates that Kakashi thinks his time would be better spent training this morning. 

So Gai sets the pace for their morning marathon on a tight loop that brings them close to Kakashi’s apartment several times, and spars with each of his students once, and then excuses himself to go insert himself into Kakashi’s day. Someone has to make sure he’s actually resting, after all. Someone has to make sure he made it all the way to bed, and has eaten something, and won’t wind up in the hospital again before the week is out. 

Shikako answers Kakashi’s door. Behind her, Sasuke and the pink-haired genin studying under Tsunade are camped out on the floor, surrounded by books. Medical textbooks, which the children explain away and then work furiously to deflect. Jutsu creation, the kids claim. Tsunade’s protégé? There for Shikako’s health and safety. 

They’re almost certainly lying, because even Kakashi wouldn’t permit jutsu experimentation _inside_ , but Gai simply threatens to come back with food for Kakashi later and then leaves. 

If the kids weren’t lying, then Kakashi has had to accept that he’s no longer in any condition to teach his students anything physical. If the kids _were_ lying, and they’re looking for some kind of medical treatment, then... Tsunade has given up. 

In either case, there hadn’t been anything Gai could help with in that room. Nothing he can do yet except not ask Kakashi questions that Kakashi won’t answer. Nothing he can do except remind himself that Hatake Kakashi is the strongest person he knows, and has a team full of unpredictable, passionate students... and begin to consider when he might be able to fit grappling lessons for Shikako into his schedule. 

By the second week of June, Kakashi is in the hospital once again. Gai stops by with a heavy heart and finds the room devoid of medical textbooks and students. Kakashi is alone, slumped lazily across the hospital bed, reading a paperback book in the late afternoon light. 

Gai supposes that Kakashi’s students have to take breaks. Perhaps they hadn’t wanted to leave their things laying around Kakashi’s room. 

Kakashi flips a page in his book. “Hm,” he says. “You again.” 

“My eternal rival,” Gai says, by way of greeting. Further words escape him, and he can’t shove the cheer and optimism into his expression the way he wants to. He’s been pretending that things are fine for a very long time, rather than prying, but it seems the time for that has come to and end, if Kakashi is now spending almost as much time in the hospital as he does out of it. 

His rival tsks at him. “So unenthused. We’ll have to break our tie once Tsunade releases me — I’d hate for you to be seduced away by some other rival just because I’ve been a little busy.” 

“Kakashi,” Gai says, “there will never be another rival for me.” He chokes on emotions he knows Kakashi doesn’t want to face. He forces himself to smile, to hit the palm of one hand with the bottom of his other, fisted hand. “I will scour the village for a board game we have not competed with yet!” 

Kakashi hums negatively at him. “No,” Kakashi says, “We’ve played too many board games lately.” 

Quick to accommodate, Gai nods — “Art, then! Another gnome sculpting challenge, perhaps?” 

This suggestion is also lazily waved away. “I was thinking it’s been awhile since we had an all day challenge,” Kakashi muses. “We could start by climbing the mountain with only our hands, then maybe a blind spar? I’m sure you’ll have ideas of your own.” 

Gai has been creeping steadily closer to Kakashi's bed, and now he sits down on it, hard. “I would like that, Kakashi,” he says. “I would like that very much.” 


End file.
